1. Technical Field
The present invention generally relates to an open healthcare apparatus and method. More particularly, the present invention relates to an open healthcare apparatus and method that may provide a customized health service based on health cases and health information managed by individuals.
2. Description of the Related Art
The conventional arts concerning personal health record management involve a process of accessing the server of a single specific medical institution, receiving personal health records after user authentication, and storing the records in a personal terminal device.
Accordingly, the conventional arts have a system in which the main agent of healthcare is the specific medical institution that provides the health records, rather than the individual.
Also, referring to Korean Patent Application Publication No. 2013-0001500, titled “System and method for managing personal health record”, and Korean Patent Application Publication No. 2013-0029576, titled “Method for serving health-related information and POI information based on cloud and system therefor”, personal health records focus on the management of Electronic Medical Records (EMR), which pertain to western medicine.
In order to enable individuals having personal health records to actively manage their health records, the individuals should be able to acquire their EMR from various clinics that have provided medical healthcares to the individuals. Also, a method for performing integrated management of the personal health records acquired from oriental medical institutions and life log servers and devices is required. However, currently, there is a lack of technology for integrated management of personal health records, and there has not been defined a health record format for integrated management capable of accommodating various forms of personal health records, including data concerning western and oriental medicine, life logs, and the like.
Also, a technique for effectively storing and managing collected personal health records is absent. Korean Patent Application Publication No. 2013-0001500 discloses a method for storing personal health records transmitted from medical institutions in a portable terminal, but has a limitation in its inability to store large amounts of time-series health records.
Meanwhile, existing healthcare services individually provide services in different forms. Because a healthcare service is a data-based information service and the quantity and quality of data are very important for providing reliable information, the existing services are limited in that they have different forms.
For successful healthcare service, what is required is an open healthcare platform based on which users may use various services by providing their health records and service providers may provide reliable and various services based on big data pertaining to users' health.